


Not quite otherwise

by MadHatter13



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Puns, F/M, Female Friendship, Footnotes, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Old Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: In a slightly different leg of the Trousers of Time, young Esmeralda Weatherwax and young Mustrum Ridcully have a little bit of a young romance.* They subsequently both got rather busy with witching and wizardry, respectively, and fell out of touch.*That being the sort of romance you generally have when you are young.Unlike yet another leg of the Trousers of Time, older Esme and Ridcully managed to reconnect, a few years down the road.
Relationships: Gytha "Nanny" Ogg & Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax, Mustrum Ridcully & Gytha "Nanny" Ogg, Mustrum Ridcully/Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax
Comments: 15
Kudos: 32





	Not quite otherwise

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in response to kereeachan 's post on tumblr speculating if there is a leg of the trousers of time where Granny and Ridcully *did* get together, but events played out very similarly to canon. I thought I would like to explore the how and the why of it.

In a _slightly_ different leg of the Trousers of Time, young Esmeralda Weatherwax and young Mustrum Ridcully have a little bit of a young romance.* They subsequently both got rather busy with witching and wizardry, respectively, and fell out of touch.

_*That being the sort of romance you generally have when you are young._

Unlike yet _another_ leg of the Trousers of Time, _older_ Esme and Ridcully managed to reconnect, a few years down the road.

Well, more than a few, really. This was before Mustrum‘s younger brother Hughnon became a high ranking priest of Blind Io. After their father‘s death, they were busy duking it out over which one of them would manage the family estate. In fact the two Ridcullys got on remarkably well as brothers go, especially when one brother was a wizard and the other a priest. But they were both, for the time being, bored of the city. They _longed_ to engage in the many sporting hobbies* enjoyed by every single Ridcully for the last eight generations after what felt like too many stifling years of study.

_*Fishing, shooting, spearing, tracking, baiting, trapping, ambushing and head-locking, often several of them all at once._

And so Mustrum Ridcully, at very nearly age thirty-five took off for Lancre for what could be called* “a relaxing mountain holiday”.

_*For him, and presumably no-one else involved, especially not the wildlife._

Imagine his surprise, seeing very nearly aged thirty-six Esmeralda Weatherwax crossing the road of Lancre Town, looking* about a two decades than when he had last seen her.**

_*Appropriately enough._

** _In fact, the surprise was great enough to cause him to fall backwards into a fountain, which to be fair did a great job in erasing some residual embarrassment by giving him something else entirely to feel embarrassed about._

‘ _Well_ , Mustrum Ridcully,’ she said with a pair of crossed arms and a stern expression, looking down at him in his soaked pit of despair. ‘I see you have not changed one bit.’

Then she grinned, and offered him a hand up.

Here, there might have been another split in the Trousers of Time, where out of some disastrous machismo he slapped her hand away and refused help. That would have been the end of it, surely. For while Esme Weatherwax dealt daily with people who refused help while in the middle of asking for it, and helped them anyway, she always remembered the slight as, “They thought I was Wrong.” And Esme Weatherwax was, of course, never wrong about anything.

But in this version of events, Mustrum Ridcully huffed his embarrassment, and took her hand, and let himself be helped out of the fountain.

It progressed, as people say, from there. In fact what it progressed _to_ was that Mistress Weatherwax and the Wizard Ridcully became friends – properly, this time. They had been rather too busy Romancing the first time around, with all sorts of notions about chas _ed_ and chas _ing_ and flowers and so on, to properly become _friends_. And well, you see, everyone needs a friend. Even the most powerful* witch of the Ramptops. Sure, she had Gytha Ogg, and probably would until the end of the world. But there was nothing that said a terrifyingly powerful witch was only ever allowed _one_ friend at a time.

_*And isolated._

In any case, well, they were busy! Mustrum with managing his family‘s property. Not to mention keeping up with his regular standards of both drinking* and hunting – and ignoring all mail from the Unseen University with his name on it. Esme with seeing to her steading, and keeping out all kinds of occult nasties that threatened Lancre on what seemed like an annual basis.

* _In fact, much of his drinking, at least when he happened to be in the Ramptops, was done in the company of one Gytha Ogg. She had never before met her match when it came to carousing, revelry and generally having a good time. Having such a great lot in common, the two got along like a house on fire. This resulted in the establishment of the Oggs‘ Shenanigans Handlers‘ Association,** dedicated to preventing two unstoppable forces from becoming a national emergency. Particularly when three sheets to the wind._

_** OSHA, for short.***_

*** _Ridcully having become an honorary Ogg when him and Gytha failed to drink each other under the table and both passed out at the exact same time, with not a gnat‘s whisker to either side._

Not to mention, at this point they had had much more practice with _being_ Mistress Esmeralda Weatherwax, and _being_ Mustrum Ridcully, D.Thau., D.M., D.S., D.Mn., D.G., D.D., D.C.L., D.M. Phil., D.M.S., D.C.M., D.W., B.El.L. Which, essentially, meant enough stubbornness on both sides to petrify a small forest.

But it was... Nice, to have an equal to rely on. Witches could always use another hand in preventing themselves from cackling, and being around a witch for any length of time would teach even a wizard some humility. Ridcully was already set to be rather more down to earth* than his fellow wizards, but merry-making with Gytha and learning to listen to Esme only enhanced this.**

* _Or rather, Disc._

** _Along with the “remarkable” realization that socializing with women did not appear to pollute the magical Wozznames when it came to being a wizard._

‘You know,’ Gytha said one time, herself on her second husband and might or might not have been losing count of the number of children,* ‘I know wizards aren’t _s’posed_ to get married, but I bet if –‘

_*Not really, because Gytha could recite every single one of the members of the Ogg clan, down to their birthdays, favourite foods and what feud they were involved in and who with._

‘You better not finish that sentence the way I know you intend to, Gytha Ogg,’ said Esme, imperiously stirring the fourth sugar lump into her tea.

‘Well, I’m just _saying,_ Esme.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ she said. ‘Although what you _aren’t_ saying, and quite sensibly too, is a load of nonsense.’ That all made about as much sense to Gytha as the whole situation in general, so she decided not to push her luck.

Some other time, over a pint or six, she said, ‘You know, I bet that if you just _asked_ –‘

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Ridcully. ‘The only way for her to agree to marriage would be if she suggested it herself.’ He caught himself, despite being considerably inebriated. ‘Not that that was what you were insi – inststi- insinininuating.’

‘No, it definitely was,’ said Gytha, squinting on the label of the bottle she had pulled from the cupboard. ‘And I’ll insinininiuate a lot more once I can get the cork out of this whiskey.’

‘Anyway,’ said Ridcully some while later, staring moodily into his glass. ‘Wizards shou’n’t go ‘round havin’ children. Don’t want another sourcerer on our hands.’

‘Wha’, you think you have to have kids just ‘cause you get married?’

Ridcully blinked blearily in her direction a couple of times. ‘Well, _you_ seem to have a great many of them, yourself!’

‘Yeah, that’s ‘cause I like ‘em. I could decide not to, if I didn’t. ‘S a lot of things a witch can do to prevent children. It’s half my job, in this village, for them as needs it.’

‘Hm.’ Was all that Ridcully said to _that_ , but he did look rather thoughtful afterwards, when Gytha waved at him unsteadily from the door of her cottage.

* * *

In fact, it took ten years, 120 days, and 10 hours* from that day at the fountain, to now. It’s anyone’s guess how it happened. In fact, Ridcully had just chanced to be in town at the same time that an infestation of zombies** had infiltrated the forest between Bad Ass and Lancre Town. In fact, people had only noticed because of the continued chorus of cussing emanating from the forest, and the wolves running yelping out of the woods sporting that distinctive ‘punched-by-the-undead’ look.***

_*Gytha Ogg has a very good internal clock for these kinds of matters._

_**In fact it was just the one zombie, and Mrs. Beaton had been very offended at being called ‘an infestation’, and was most insistent that she had never done any infiltrating in her unlife._

_***A wolf may make the mistake of thinking a passing zombie an easy meal, but only once._

Regardless of the particulars, it had taken all day to help Mrs. Beaton find her other arm, and once she was on her way,* all any of them could think of was to go to Esme’s cottage for a cup of tea and a sit-down. Trudging back through the woods just as it began to drizzle, Gytha sighed. ‘Your cottage is too far from the village, Esme.’

_*’On a quest to seek vengeance on the bastards who murdered me, dearie.’_

‘Nonsense,’ said Esme, just as Ridcully said, ‘A brisk walk does you good!’ They exchanged a brief glance, and walked on. Gytha resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Gods’ save me from knowing _two_ outdoorspeople.’*

_*This was a bit of slander on their part – no-one survived long in Lancre if they did not at least endure the outdoors. Well, unless they were an aristocrat._

‘It’s far enough into the woods that you don’t have to go far to hunt for game,’ said Ridcully. ‘Well, aside from big predators, I suppose.’ Bears and wolves would rather take a mile’s detour if it meant they could avoid running into Esme.

‘You’d have to go into Town for river fishing, though,’ Esme commented.

‘Well, I don’t mind the walk.’

‘And I like my privacy.’

‘I suppose we both do.’

The two of them had kept walking, but Gytha had stopped in the middle of the road, one foot raised. They paid her no attention, and spoke as if remarking on the weather.

‘I’d have to spend quite some time away,’ said Ridcully in the same tone of voice. ‘There is the estate to take care of, and Hughnon is up for High Priest soon.’

‘Well, it is not as if I am home much. Life keeps us busy.’

‘And I could pass it on to my niece* in a few years. She has a good head on her shoulders. I should like to spend more time up here in any case.’

* _Benjamina ‘Happy’ Ridcully, heavy-weight boxing champion and flyfisherwoman extraordinaire._

‘No use in wasting time, then,’ said Esme. ‘We can have the wedding in Grune.’

‘Good idea. We ought to serve jacket potatoes. Never enough jacket potatoes at a wedding, in my opinion.’

‘Too true.’ Esme glanced back, to where Gytha still stood, one foot frozen in the air, mouth half open. ‘What are you doing all the way back there, Gytha Ogg? Do keep up.’

The foot descended, and Gytha scurried to catch back up with them. ‘Right,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Fine. _I’m_ the asshole.’*

_*She was the best man_ and _the maid of honour at their wedding. During the toast she almost got as far as grabbing the banjo and singing ‘A Wizard’s Staff Has A Knob On The End’, but at that point the bearskin rug by the fireplace actually got up and walked out the door, having been temporarily revived from sheer second-hand embarrassment._

* * *

It was not what anyone would call a traditional marriage. For one thing, the participants were at the age commonly designated for spinsters and bachelors, and no-one had ever expected them to tie the knot.* For another, they spent much time busy, and away from each other, often in different countries, even. But there was no denying it that they very much had married each other.

* _In Ridcully’s case because wizards usually didn’t, and in Esme’s case because she was, well, Esme._

‘That’s my wife,’ said Ridcully, nudging the bystander next to him with gleeful pride as they watched Mistress Weatherwax* disintegrate Unlucky Charlie in the blink of an eye at the witch trials.

* _No witch would take her husband’s name, and more importantly no Esmeralda Weatherwax would, either._

‘That’s my wife,’ he said, a touch embarrassed at the conflict of interest when the Duke and Duchess of Lancre attempted to hire him to get rid of ‘that terrible busybody Mistress Weatherwax.’

‘That’s my wife!’ He gloated to his faculty as they watched her stab an elf through the arm with an iron hat pin.

‘He’s _seriously married?_ ’ Wheezed the Dean, flinging another third-level spell from behind the cover of a bush.

‘He tells us all the time!’ Ponder Stibbons yelled back, hurriedly moving the catatonic Bursar out of the way of a stray fireball. ‘Did you think he was joking?’

The Dean ducked just in time to avoid a thrown elven spear, which nailed his hat to a nearby tree. ‘I assumed it was some kind of terrible euphemism for his crossbow!’ Then they all had to leg it through the woods, because there was a kingdom to save, or something. The wizards hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention.

In fact, while many things change, just as many stay much the same, because the people involved are, well, themselves. There were quite a few interesting diversions, of course – but that is a story, perhaps, for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely outside the text of the fic and I know she is barely an OC as she only appears in a footnote, but Happy Ridcully is definitely Ankh-Morpork's most eligible lesbian bachelorette.


End file.
